St Mary the Virgin, Iffley

Understanding our heritage

St Mary’s Church in its landscape

Leaflet and Trail

Introduction

St Mary the Virgin, Iffley, is a virtually undisturbed Romanesque church. There is evidence that it was built under the auspices of one of England’s wealthiest magnates, Geoffrey de Clinton, Treasurer to Henry I and builder of Kenilworth Castle. What is less clear is how it was cared for through the centuries leading up to, and following, the English Reformation of the 16th century. When the diocese of Oxford was formed from part of the pre-Reformation diocese of Lincoln in 1542, Iffley’s patronage moved from Osney Abbey to Christ Church Cathedral. At this time a new wing was added to the rectory, and not long afterwards extensive work was undertaken on the boundary walls of the churchyard, walls that define and protect the sacred space within which the church stands. This trail explores the archaeological and historical evidence for this work.

Our sleuthing will highlight a key player: Archdeacon Barten Holyday (1593-1661). He lived in the rectory as both a family man and an influential representative of Iffley’s patron: Christ Church. We can trace his mark on some of the walls of the churchyard.

Medieval Iffley The earliest known buildings of Iffley hug the contour of Rose Hill at 200 feet above sea level, high enough to command access to and a view of the river and meadows beyond, also to protect the village from flooding.

From south to north, the core buildings included a hall (manor house) at Court Place (presumably where the manorial courts were held), the church of St Mary, a 13th-century hall on the site of the rectory and probably also a farm, now called Manor House. Below was a riverside mill, destroyed by fire in 1908. The de St Remy family from Normandy were lords of the manor of Iffley in the mid-later 12th century, related by marriage to the de Clinton family. It was they who most likely built the church and Court Place. They also owned the mill.

Iffley was located close enough to the River Thames to use its waters for powering the mill, for protected fishing and for wider access to the Thames Valley.

Access to Iffley by land was via Church Way, the modern successor of a medieval route following the 220-foot contour of Rose Hill. This route once continued south to Littlemore and Sandford, with access for pig grazing and woodcutting at Hog Common to the south of Court Place. Church Way is crossed by lanes, walls and hedges marking the boundaries of fields once worked by tenant farmers of the manor. Tree Lane and Eastchurch were footpaths to Temple Cowley and Littlemore, both once forming parts of Iffley parish.

Work is ongoing to explore the links of the church to the river. Was this branch of the Thames navigable up to the mill before the lock was built in the 17th century? Was there a landing-stage below Court Place, aligning with the church? Did boats go to and from Oxford from the site of the old ferry north of the mill? 1 The walls around St Mary’s, and Archdeacon Barten Holyday

The boundary walls around the churchyard were probably built by masons from Oxford when the Archdeacon of Christ Church lived in the rectory at Iffley with its spacious 16th-century wing.

A likely time for their first construction is after 1626, when Barten Holyday, playwright, translator of the Roman poets Horace, Perseus and Juvenal and former chaplain to King Charles I, was appointed Archdeacon of Oxford. The son of an Oxford tailor, Thomas Holyday, Barten married Elizabeth Wickham, daughter of the leaseholder of Iffley rectory, William Wickham of Abingdon. Uniquely among the archdeacons of Oxford, Barten Holyday appears to have lived with his family in the Rectory at Iffley. His son George was baptised in St Mary’s in 1634. The walls of the churchyard appear to be structurally linked with the building of a new kitchen wing on the east side of the rectory. During the Civil Wars of the 1640s, having espoused (reportedly under some duress) the Parliamentarian cause, Barten Holyday was granted a living in Berkshire. He returned to Iffley at the Restoration of King Charles II in 1660. Here he died on October 2nd, 1661, aged 68, “of the new epidemicall disease that rageth now abroad” and was buried in Christ Church cathedral.

Archdeacon Holyday was a writer of notable aphorisms, of which the most famous is “A man may as well open an oyster without a knife, as a lawyer’s mouth without a fee.” Perhaps the nearby Thames inspired another enduring thought: “River is time in water; as it came, still so it flows, yet never is the same.”

TRAIL MAP

Start the trail by looking carefully at the West and South doorways to the Church. Then follow the numbers as shown on the map to track the 17-century boundary walls around the churchyard.

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Trail

START the trail at the WEST DOOR of St Mary’s church.

Engraving of the 1830s showing the use of the south door as the main entrance to St Mary’s church. (Note that the west front had been restored to its original height but the nave roof had not.)

This is now the main entrance to the church. Despite its beautiful sculptured decoration, this door was probably only used for major festivals in medieval times. The main entrance to the church was on the south side.

The south door (now closed) is also decorated with sculpture. From here a path ran to the nearby manor house of Court Place. Imagine yourself as Lord or Lady of the Manor. How easy it would have been to slip into church, it’s almost a private chapel!

The south door of St Mary’s seen from the path leading to Court Place.

Now follow the path towards Court Place. Stop near the little doorway in the wall.

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1. Entrance to the churchyard from Court Place

The door through the churchyard wall to the back of Court Place manor house. The plaque commemorating the building is boxed in black.

Look high up on the wall of Court Place to see a stone recording John Lewis’s rebuilding of the house in 1580. For the last 50 years England had been riven by religious arguments. The Reformation, begun by Henry VIII, resulted in changing the way everyone behaved in church. In spite of 20 years of enforced Protestant worship under Queen Elizabeth I, some people refused to abandon the Catholic tradition. John Lewis may have been a recusant. His wife was taken to a tribunal in 1596 for refusing to attend St Mary’s as she didn’t approve of the changes to the services. The inscribed stone, boxed in black on the photograph, is not in its original position. The house probably replaced a timber medieval manor hall. It was heightened and given a new hipped roof and bigger windows in the 18th century.

2. The wall between the churchyard and Court Place

Walk uphill through the churchyard beside the wall running east from the doorway to Court Place. The hill was liable to erosion, so in one place the wall needed buttressing.

Buttress added to the south stretch of the churchyard wall. In the background is the lodge at the entrance to Court Place.

4 3. The wall beside the lodge to Court Place

Carry on and take a good look at the wall beside the lodge to Court Place. It is made of a variety of stones recycled from earlier buildings. Some are dark red, suggesting the building they came from had been burned. The stone wall is of unusual design, with a string course of projecting stones near the top of it, then narrow courses of smaller stones above, which could be capped, at various periods in the wall’s history, with tiles and/or concrete, set in a curve to drain rain or snow from the wall.

Circled is a butt join with a stretch of wall to the left built on higher ground. As the stones used to build the two stretches of wall are so similar, the butt join may represent a change in ground level, rather than a lapse in time of construction of the wall- though walls are often repaired and rebuilt out of the same material!

4. The wall running north from the doorway to Court Place

Start walking towards the main entrance to the churchyard. Stop when you can see the keeling gravestone to the left of the ancient yew tree and the stone cross. Here you have a distant view of the same wall running from south to north through part of the churchyard.

You passed this stretch of the wall on your way to Court Place. Can you find it on a picture of the church printed in 1785?

A view of St Mary’s from the south-east, printed in 1785. The wall appears behind the yew tree and the shaft of the medieval cross.

5 5. The same wall is to be found in Mill Lane

Walk out of the entrance to the Churchyard and turn sharp left down Mill Lane. Notice little versions of this same wall protecting the vestry and church office, once the stables of the rectory below.

Smaller versions of the churchyard wall protect the stables of the rectory, now housing the vestry and church office. In the background is the 16th-century range of the rectory.

6. The wall between the main entrance to the rectory and the old stables.

Look inside the first gateway to the vestry and church office. Inside to the right is a flat archway cut through the same style of wall. This allowed access from the main entrance of the rectory to the former stables. A large ammonite is built into the wall to the left of the archway. Further left the wall rises but is cut by the church office building, a former scullery added to the 17th-century kitchen wing of the rectory.

Wall with archway (right) connecting the rectory entrance with the stables. Circled (centre) is an ammonite built into the fabric of the wall. The cutting of the wall by the later scullery is squared (left).

6 7. A typical boundary wall in Iffley village that was does not bear the mark of the churchyard or rectory walls

The imposing rectory has changed over the years but the part closest to the road was built about 1500. Even earlier is the southern section of the building, once part of a 13th-century hall. Look across the road to see a much more common type of boundary wall in Iffley.

Wall on the north side of Mill Lane, opposite the rectory. This type of wall, capped with pitched stones set in mortar, has been much used in Iffley since the 19th century.

8. How the boundary wall of the church properties differs from its neighbours

Just below the rectory the boundary wall of the church properties reappears, butting against the wall of the building.

The boundary wall reappears on Mill Lane below the rectory.

The masonry styles between the rectory and the boundary wall are quite different here. The butt joint between the two walls tells you that the boundary wall is later than the rectory and was not bonded with it. Here the boundary wall looks very different from the churchyard. It is entirely built of the small stones used in the churchyard for the capping area only.

7 9. Another stretch of the boundary wall

Retrace your steps to the entrance to the churchyard and follow the paved path back towards the start of the trail at the west entrance to the church. Passing the vestry, the back of the church office and a yew tree on your right, you approach the east wall of the kitchen wing of the rectory. At right angles to the rectory you will see a stretch of the boundary wall with a white stone arch in it, with masonry blocking the entrance below. This archway once connected the churchyard with the front garden of the rectory. The rectory wall has seen improvements to insulation and drainage, but originally bonded with the garden wall.

Blocked archway in the garden wall of the rectory, seen from the churchyard.

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